


In the Meadow

by Aki_of_Eyluvial



Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare, Romeo e Giulietta - Ama e Cambia il Mondo, Romeo et Juliette - Presgurvic
Genre: Brotherly Love, Fae AU, Gen, M/M, Not human characters, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, fae!mercutio
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-15 01:30:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19285330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aki_of_Eyluvial/pseuds/Aki_of_Eyluvial
Summary: Sometimes a simple mistake changes more than what one can expect.But some people are meant, somehow, to reunite against all odds.A story of two brothers (and some lovers?) in a Meadow between worlds.





	1. Deep in the meadow, under the willow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SKwriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SKwriter/gifts).



Tybalt was small, he’d always been small, short legs that never allowed him to jump high and that made him run to keep up with everyone else pace. He never cared. He never cared because Chat always walked slowly, keeping _his_ pace and carefully checking he was never too much behind, he would wait, held out a hand for him to take and walk side by side.

Tybalt loved his brother so dearly, even before learning what _love_ was.

But love, he would soon discover, was never meant for them.

“What’s outside?” He plopped unceremoniously his chin on his brother’s head with an annoyed sigh, draped his arms around the neck and yawned. The Cat laughed softly.

“Outside where?” He asked; he had, of course, an idea of what his little brother meant, but the child already proved himself to be full of surprises even at his young age.

“Out.” Tybalt pointed at the edges of the Meadow, at the trees bending on each other to remind them, and everyone, of a gate. One they should never cross without a good reason. _(Or a hunt, but Tybalt was still too young for that.)_ “I saw someone last day, - _He revealed whispering in his ear._ \- He walked like this.” With a small jump he stood and moved in front of the older boy. He wobbled unsteady on his naked feet mimicking the stranger’s walk in a, maybe, too exaggerated way. When he dropped sitting on the grass he laughed throwing the head back. His curly hair fell over his back almost brushing the grass, under the sun the light freckles on his face shone in a silver hue, a feature he took from their mother.

“What was _it_?” He asked again, curiosity dripping from every word and every look he shot at him. The older brother never learned how to refuse him something.

“He, not _it._ \- _He explained shortly._ \- A Human.”

Tybalt looked at him cocking his head to the side, he brushed the fingers over the grass, careful to never tear it away.

“Hooman?” The word felt strange on his tongue but he couldn’t pinpoint the reason. Maybe it was because it was new, or perhaps he heard it wrong.

“Human.” The Cat corrected him patiently. “They live on the other side of the woods.” Tybalt opened his mouth in wonder, in his short life it never occurred to him that there was _actually_ something on the other side.

“Can we go?” He asked jumping back on his feet and bouncing impatient in front of him. “Can we? Can we?”

The Cat looked around. The sun was still high in the sky, they had time to go in the city – _Verona, Elena told him it was called_. - and return before any other of their kind would notice. He would have gone anyway, as most days, after putting his brother in bed. She always waited for him at the other edge of the woods, shining under the moon. Going there during the day wouldn’t be much different after all.

“Fine.” He agreed standing and holding his hand out for him to grab.

 _No, it wouldn’t be different,_ he repeated to himself as they followed the path through the trees leaving the safety of the Meadow behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For sweet @hanatriestowrite on tumblr, and her fic [Not Quite Mortal](https://hanatriestowrite.tumblr.com/post/185237727624/not-quite-mortal-rj-fae-mercutio-au).  
> I started it as snippets and bits here and there, mostly while heading to work, I guess it's time to put them together in some order and sense.  
> (Sense that I still don't know if it's there or not, we'll see...)  
> Quite obviously the titles of the chapters will be from "Deep in the Meadow", and there in the Meadow between worlds happens most of the things. Not everything but most of them.
> 
> Hopefully you'll like this (again very much hopefully!) short thing. And go follow the original one that deserve much more recognition and love. (And it's about Mercutio! Who I still have some trouble writing.)
> 
>  
> 
> ~Aki~


	2. A bed of grass, a soft green pillow

Tybalt jumped from root to root in a childish yet innocent way, Faeries aged slower than humans, everyone knew that much, even those who didn’t believe in their existence. Even in their own immortality he was still a child, still learning, still overly curious. Not that the Cat wasn’t curious either, on the contrary, he was just slightly better than him at hiding it.

“Will there be many Hoomans there?” Tybalt asked, the word wasn’t perfect yet, the _oo_ too long, the Cat found it almost funny. He didn’t correct him that time, his brother knew the mistake and tried to correct it on his own, it was simply too difficult for him at the moment.

“Of course there will, it’s their world.”

“And the girl too?” The Cat froze for a moment, he turned to look at his brother who innocently kept walking.

“Which girl?” He asked suspiciously. He shouldn’t know of her, of Elena, he had always been careful to never mention her and even more careful to never being followed.

“Pretty girl. - _Tybalt stated rather simply._ \- Red hair.”

“ _Yes. Definitely Elena...”_ The Cat thought. He didn’t want to get angry, he was his brother, his little brother, _his only brother_ , he couldn’t really get angry at him.

“And where did you met such a pretty girl?” He wondered with a smile, the path turned left and up a small hill, below was Verona. Tybalt shrugged at his question.

“Saw you and girl. - _He said letting his hand go and walking cautiously toward the edge of the woods watching the high walls around the city._ \- In dreams.” _Dreams._ Of course. He should have known better than almost accusing him of following him around way past his bedtime. “Hooman?” Tybalt pointed at a tall man, his clothes dark, almost black, and golden.

“Yes. That’s a Human.”

Slowly they made their way down the hill and, still holding his hand tightly, walked through the gate.

Verona was a much bigger city than what the Cat knew. During his night visits he always stopped at a square at the edge, close to the gate so he could leave as quick as he needed, anyway everything seemed bigger during the day. Some people sent them strange looks, mostly annoyed by the child quickly passing through them on swift feet, but most simply ignored them.

“ _Not so dangerous then…”_ The Cat thought grabbing Tybalt from the shirt and lifting in his arms before he could climb on one tables in the market. The woman on the other side smiled, her big brown eyes shone in the light. She took a fruit and, cleaning it on her gray dress, she passed it to him.

“Don’t worry. Go ahead child, eat it, it’s sweet as honey.” She said, her smile growing even larger as Tybalt took the fruit and bit it without hesitation, the juice rolling down his chin.

“Hey… how do we say, Tybbles?” The Cat told him cleaning him with his sleeve.

“Thank you.” He said, before turning his attention back on the fruit.

Everything was fine, absolutely fine, almost perfect. Nothing could ruin that day and, more importantly, Tybalt was happy.

The Cat always tried his best, and maybe even a little more, not just to take care of him but to make him happy too. But after their mother died on a spring afternoon things had been different, harder. For them both. Tybalt was too young to fight, to work, to do most things. He was still a child. And he had to do things for both. He never blamed his brother, if anything it was Humans’ fault if they were left motherless. Their father was – the Cat didn’t know. Nor he cared, just like he never really cared for them.

“I didn’t expect to see you so soon.” A voice said from his left. When he turned Elena was there, dark red hair tied in a braid on her shoulder, a red dress hugging her body, and a basket in her hands. The Cat almost jumped up from the bench where he was sitting keeping an eye on his brother who was, currently, following a cat around the square. “And so far inside the city.” She always spoke so kindly, unaware of his fae nature. – _and him very much determined to keep it a secret_ – Always sweet. It was forbidden to fall for a human, he knew well, but she was just so –

“I thought a little change couldn’t hurt.” She laughed holding the basket close to her chest before jumping slightly when a woman called for her. She hurried to her and took the bread she handed her putting it in the basket before nodding at something the woman said.

“Your sister?” The Cat asked when Elena returned to him, she quickly shook her head, the braid falling from the shoulder on her back at the movement.

“Oh, no no. She’s my lady.” She looked back at the woman who was now checking some red fabrics, long blond hair carefully tied in a simple hairstyle along with white pearls between the strands. “Lady Vittoria Capulet.” The Cat hummed softly, he wasn’t that much interested in the woman. Not with Elena there.

 

“Oh, child… are you lost?” Tybalt lifted his gaze from the fountain water on the young woman who sat by his side. She smiled sweetly at him, her long dress green like the grass of the Meadow, almost sparkling under the sun. He shook his head and pointed at the other side of the square where he knew the Cat was watching him. She followed his finger, but no one was there.

“There’s no one there, sweetie. - _She gently said brushing a strand of hair from his face when he turned at her words._ \- Oh, dear…” Worry latched her words seeing how scared the little boy was getting. Tybalt frantically looked around, scanned the square in search of his brother with growing fear.

“Come. - _She held out her hand to him._ \- I’ll help you find your mother.”

When Tybalt looked back at her, still trying to find the Cat, tears were rolling silently down his cheeks, he grabbed the soft hand with his and buried his face in her chest.

Dark, stormy clouds gathered above Verona, a sudden change for such a warm and sunny day. A thunder exploded in the distance. When the Cat looked up he immediately knew it wasn’t a natural change. And Tybalt was nowhere to be seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there goes their trip to the Human world. Elena is a sweet girl, her lady is definitely kind, and the woman at the end is very much kind too, luckily for Tybalt. They will probably return later on, even if just mentioned. The market woman too.  
> Seriously, little Tybbs is just so sweet that everyone ends up loving him, for now at least.
> 
> This chapter is too sweet... I mean, it's okay, it just wasn't supposed to be that much sweet, that's all. Tybbles' fault, again.   
> BEWARE READERS!! Angst is coming!! (Though the main angst parts are only 4 for now in the whole outlined story. 4 out of 17. A nice compromise, isn't it?
> 
> For now, melt in sweetness and I'll be there, making a blanket fort to protect myself during next chapters. 
> 
> Love you~
> 
> ~Aki~


End file.
